Quotes from buchan john ii

There comes a time to everyone when the world narrows for him to a strait alley, with Death at the end of it, and all his thoughts are fixed on that waiting enemy of mankind.

The secret of life is to find out what one really wants.

The world is full of pleasant things, but the pleasantest of all is a warm hearth and a comfortable home.

Civilisation is a conspiracy. What value would your police be if every criminal could find a sanctuary across the Channel, or your law courts, if no other tribunal recognised their decisions? Modern life is the silent compact of comfortable folk to keep up pretences. And it will succeed till the day comes when there is another compact to strip them bare.

The spark once transmitted may smoulder for generations under ashes, but the appointed time will come, and it will flare up to warm the world. God never allows waste. And we fools rub our eyes and wonder, when we see genius come out of the gutter. It didn't begin there. We tell ourselves that Shakespeare was the son of a woolpedlar, and Napoleon of a farmer, and Luther of a peasant, and we hold up our hands at the marvel. But who knows what kings and prophets they had in their ancestry!

Loyalty and religion have many meanings, and self-interest is a skilled interpreter.

The true mark of a leader is not how many followers he has, but how he inspires them to greatness.

The world is full of mysteries, and the greatest mystery of all is the human heart.

Happiness lies only in a divine unrest; and if you are lapped in comfort you stagnate and miss it.

It is better to die on one's feet than to live on one's knees.

What do we mean by spiritual development? Surely, the broadening and deepening of the mind till it regards the world in its true perspective, and the strengthening of the character so that the will is a tempered and unerring weapon in the charge of a man's soul. And this end is to be achieved only by the exercise of the mind upon the largest possible manifold of experience, and by the conflict of character with the alien forces of the world.

The true mark of a king is not his power or his wealth, but his compassion for his people.

A man's inhumanity to man is only surpassed by his ignorance of his fellow man.

The true test of a man's character is not how much he has, but how much he is willing to give.

I never mind choler in a man if he have also honesty and good sense.

The true test of a man's character is how he behaves when no one is watching.

Civilisation needs more than the law to hold it together. You see, all mankind are not equally willing to accept as divine justice what is called human law.